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Greek Plays In Georgian Reading1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Edith Hall
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Extract

If you lived in Reading in 1821, you might be tempted by the advertisement in your local newspaper for forthcoming attractions at the neighbourhood's commercial theatre. Should your taste encompass Greco-Roman themes, you might want to see ‘Monsieur DECOUR, the renowned FRENCH HERCULES!! Who will perform… FEATS AND EVOLUTIONS…’. If you preferred oriental stunts, you would choose ‘The Chinese JUGGLERS from the Court of Pekin!!’ Such exhibitions are fairly typical of the popular entertainments enjoyed during the late Georgian era in any fast industrializing provincial town not too far from London. But what is surprising is that the same newspaper offers a review of a production in the town hall of Euripides’ little known tragedy Orestes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , April 1997 , pp. 59 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

2. ‘Representation of the Orestes of Euripides at Reading School’, Reading Mercury no. 5163, 11 5th 1821, p. 5Google Scholar col. 3.

3. For an excellent account of this whole period see Macintosh, Fiona, ‘Tragedy in Performance: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Productions’, in Easterling, P. E. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (forthcoming, Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar.

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18. Naxton, Michael, The History of Reading School (Reading, 1986), 53Google Scholar. On the Winchester College plays in the sixteenth century see Motter, T H. V., The School Drama in England (London/ New York/Toronto, 1929), 28–35Google Scholar.

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41. Reading Mercury no. 4692, Monday October 26th 1812, p. 3 col. 3.

42. Mitford (n. 17 above), xvii, recalls a Reading Greek play featuring Antigone, which is more likely to have been Sophocles’ Antigone than Aeschylus’ Septem, Sophocles’ O.C. or Euripides’ Phoenissae.

43. Reading Mercury no. 4848, Monday 10 23rd 1815, p. 3Google Scholar col. 1.

44. Reading Mercury no. 4505, Monday 10 18th 1818, p. 3Google Scholar col. 3.

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57. Mitford (n. 17 above), xv.

58. Letter to Mrs. Holland in Chorley (n. 55 above), vol. i. 116–17.

59. Reading Mercury (n. 32 above).

60. Reading Mercury (n. 32 above).

61. Chorley (n. 55 above), 116–17.

62. Mitford (n. 29 above), 314–15.

63. Mitford (n. 17 above), xvi.

64. Bockett (n. 19 above).

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73. Reading Mercury (n. 47 above).

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75. Pat Easterling's study is to be published in a PCPS supplement, edited by Chris Stray, containing essays on the history of Classics at Cambridge.

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